posted at 5:21 pm on June 2, 2014 by Allahpundit

The more damning the accusations against Bergdahl, the less the prisoner swap adds up.

A senior official confirms to Fox News that the conduct of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl — both in his final stretch of active duty in Afghanistan and then, too, during his time when he lived among the Taliban — has been thoroughly investigated by the U.S. intelligence community and is the subject of “a major classified file.”

In conveying as much, the Defense Department source confirmed to Fox News that many within the intelligence community harbor serious outstanding concerns not only that Bergdahl may have been a deserter but that he may have been an active collaborator with the enemy…

Sources told Fox News that many officials in the Executive Branch are “quite baffled” by the White House’s decision to allow the president to stand alongside Bergdahl’s father this past weekend, given the father’s history of controversial statements, emails and online posts.

There’s a Pentagon file that may or may not accuse this guy of outright treason and not only does Obama still do the deal for five Taliban bigwigs, he holds a big White House presser with Bergdahl’s father? What?

Rosen’s not the only reporter hearing whispers about collaboration either. Stephen Hayes of the Standard spoke to several soldiers from Bergdahl’s squad (one of whom tweeted at length about his suspicions this weekend) and heard lots of doubts — and not just about desertion.

[S]everal military officials who spoke with THE WEEKLY STANDARD noted privately that Taliban attacks on U.S. forces in the Paktika province seemed to increase in frequency and effectiveness [after Bergdahl disappeared]…

[O]thers wonder whether Bergdahl helped the Taliban, either willfully or under duress. In the hours after he disappeared, according to sources familiar with the intelligence, U.S. troops received an intelligence report that Bergdahl stopped in a local village and asked how to find the Taliban. That report, if it exists, is not mentioned in the Wikileaks documents related to Bergdahl’s disappearance. But several sources with knowledge of the case insist that the report is true.

Says one platoon mate: “He’s friends with the delivery driver, he’s friends with the goat farmer, he’s got relationships with all the locals—and he stops to ask how he can find the Taliban? He could have just gone to Habib the local goat farmer and floated along with the locals.”

Intel officials told Hayes that the Pentagon thoroughly investigated Bergdahl’s disappearance, questioning members of his squad many times. Among the things they wanted to know was whether he had info that could have helped the Taliban, be it medical, tactical (how to deal with IEDs), or strategic. Two other sources told him that Bergdahl was, in fact, considered AWOL by the Army — but that the Pentagon ultimately backed down on formally designating him that way, probably because the politics of accusing Bergdahl while he was in enemy hands would have been simply too hot for comfort.

But if all that’s true … why was Bergdahl promoted in absentia to sergeant in 2011? Why would he be in line for another promotion, to staff sergeant, this month? And why would the White House let itself get within a thousand miles of the Bergdahl family with suspicions like these ready to bubble over? It’s one thing to do a deal to get an American back; it’s another to give away the terrorist farm as part of it; and it’s another still to give away the farm for a guy whom your own investigators think may be a Taliban sympathizer. Remember, the ostensible point of the prisoner exchange is to set a precedent so that Obama can release other detainees at Gitmo later this year and finally close the prison. The last thing you’d want to do in that case is trade five especially dangerous detainees for someone whose loyalty to the U.S. is in serious question even within the administration’s own ranks. It’s a political tornado in the making; if Bergdahl does end up being proved a deserter or worse, Democrats will run screaming from future Gitmo prisoner releases. Just doesn’t make sense. Maybe the White House has reason to believe that Bergdahl’s getting a bum rap and really was taken against his will — but in that case, why isn’t Carney or anyone else pushing back hard with that information? What’s going on here?

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He hasn’t been accused of anything, or charged with anything, but the right wing blogosphere is already calling him a terrorist, a traitor, and a collaborator.

He’s an american soldier, you don’t have to like him, but you can give him a chance to defend himself in his own words before you execute him.

Why do republicans claim to like america but hate americans?

triple on June 2, 2014 at 8:44 PM

Bergdahl has been accused of plenty of wrongdoing, by the people who were in a position to know — the other members of his army unit.

He has not been formally charged with any crimes, and probably will never be, for political reasons. But there is an abundance of evidence that he committed crimes, including desertion. And if he is ever court martialed, he will be entitled, as a matter of law, to a presumption of innocence from the judge and jury. But he is not entitled to a presumption of innocence from us. We are free to form our own conclusions from the known evidence, just as the Pentagon did. And like the Pentagon, we conclude that Bergdahl is, at best, a deserter and, at worst, a traitor.

Noted liberals MorOn.org and Code Pinko have been noticeably absent since Dog Eater took over, you would think that all the people he’s been vaporizing could rouse them to at least construct a few paper-mache heads.

Nice Straw-man, sniveling little leftist c*nt, but this isn’t about “The Horrors of War” ™ It’s about a deserter. A kid raised to hate America by a set of douche-bag, retarded hippies, who by all accounts enlisted to live out some secret-squirrel fantasy, and was disappointed when it got tough.

What everyone in the US Military is *sworn* to do, is to protect their country. Part of your responsibility under the UCMJ, as a US war-fighter, is to not cut and run off during said war. You resist the enemy to the best of your ability, even when captured. Hell, some Warriors even believe in dying before they give up their brothers, or any info that could be used to harm them or innocents. Ask McCain why his jaw sticks out all funny like that. I know a fella has holes in his calves from where the VC stuck spikes through his legs, thinking he would talk, and that it would keep him from running. Didn’t work though.

What this jag-off did, by all accounts of his platoon, was ran to the open arms of the enemy; of his own accord.

He’s a deserter, was probably a collaborator; your leftist messiah sprung him to get the heat off himself for a particularly unsavory media week, and now the Bad Guys have five of their most important, back to where they can kill more Americans.

But what the Hell, right? you leftist freaks are getting exactly what you’ve always wanted: an amoral, weak, perverted America, on it’s knees in front of the rest of the World.

Charging him makes as much sense as promoting him. For all we know he was never going to be seen again. The release rate of prisoners by Islamic terrorists has to be in the single digit percentage area. I think he’s a deserter but he has probably suffered enough. Go home, be with his family and shut up. I think he and his family need to be happy with the fifteen minutes he has already had.

Far from ending Bush-era policies of extraordinary rendition and torture that outraged liberals, Democratic President Obama has developed them further, Nation correspondent Jeremy Scahill said during the second part of a Democracy Now! interview about his new book, Dirty Wars.

“There are ways in which Obama pushed the Cheney agenda far beyond what a President McCain or a President Romney would have been able to do, because he had his base of supporters,” Scahill said.

Ok. I’ve been quite quiet on this since there seems to be a lot of yappity without much quality, but isn’t killing (murder, smoke inhalation, whatever you want to call it) an ambassador an act of war? So, now what? Isn’t abandoning your post desertion, whatever the circumstances? Isn’t negotiating with terrorists (however defined) by our government illegal? Or am I just an idiot?

He’s an american soldier, you don’t have to like him, but you can give him a chance to defend himself in his own words before you execute him.

triple on June 2, 2014 at 8:44 PM

Impossible. He’s forgotten how to speak English. And I’m willing to bet that his Pashtu was never much above a 3 year old’s level. If he’s forgotten how to speak english, chances are good that he’s forgotten pretty much everything that happened more than a couple of years ago.

Why do you think a trial or explanation is needed now, when Barky could have just put Bergdahl on his drone kill list with the rest of them? He argued that he could drone kill anyone he wanted. You need to get your story straight with your Sukarno clone.

No, I meant liberals. Politics are shades of grey, not black and white. If politics were in black and white, I could get away with calling republicans “nazis”, because that’s the farthest right wing party I can think of at the moment.

But it’s not, and I don’t.

Mainly because I had a 4th grade education and I know the difference between an american liberal – which is really center right compared to most political parties around the world – and soviet era communists.

Nazism, or National Socialism in full (German: Nationalsozialismus), is the ideology and practice associated with the 20th-century German Nazi Party and state as well as other related far-right groups.

, I meant liberals. Politics are shades of grey, not black and white. If politics were in black and white, I could get away with calling republicans “nazis”, because that’s the farthest right wing party I can think of at the moment. But it’s not, and I don’t. Mainly because I had a 4th grade education and I know the difference between an american liberal –which is really center right compared to most political parties around the world –and soviet era communists. But your school failed you, and for that I’m sorry. triple on June 2, 2014 at 9:06 PM

Nazism, or National Socialism in full (German: Nationalsozialismus), is the ideology and practice associated with the 20th-century German Nazi Party and state as well as other related far-right groups.

If politics were in black and white, I could get away with calling republicans “nazis”, because that’s the farthest right wing party I can think of at the moment.

Mainly because I had a 4th grade education…

triple on June 2, 2014 at 9:06 PM

Now, see, if you’d had a 5th grade education, you’d know that the National Sozialistische Duetsche Arbeiter Partei (National Socialist German Worker’s Party, or NSDAP, or Nazi, for short) was a leftist organization. Socialist, even. Soviet era communists liked to paint them as righties for their own wartime propaganda purposes, even though they started out WWII as allies. Both were totalitarian manifestations of the left, not the right.

The backlog of claims and unnecessary delays in veterans’ care has broadened despite a 235 percent increase in the budget of the Department of Veterans Affairs between 2001 and 2013.

That finding has prompted veterans’ advocates to contend that it is a lack of accountability, not funding, that is at the root of the systemic crisis.

“While everyone claims increased funding is the answer to what ails the VA, I am not sure that a bigger budget will necessarily fix the underlying issues,” retired Marine Sgt. Maj. Joseph VanFonda, CEO of the nonprofit Disabled Veterans National Foundation, wrote in a recent blog post.

“The VA has been overburdened for years, but the real issue is a systematic failure to put proper procedures in place to meet the needs of veterans and prevent these types of abuses in the first place,” VanFonda said.

Budget increases at the VA have come as the total number of veterans is decreasing due primarily to the deaths of aging World War II participants.

According to figures from the Office of Management and Budget, funding for medical care, which composes 40 percent of the VA’s annual budget, increased 193 percent from 2001 to 2013.

No, I meant liberals. Politics are shades of grey, not black and white. If politics were in black and white, I could get away with calling republicans “nazis”, because that’s the farthest right wing party I can think of at the moment.

triple on June 2, 2014 at 9:06 PM

You need to do some research and educate yourself as to what the National Socialist Workers party actually was, and stop listening to the State-Run media who is similarly ignorant and uninformed.

The Nazi party was a Socialist party (FAR from “right wing”) and was actually MUCH closer to today’s Democrat Party than anything we’ve seen thus far in American politics.

No, I meant liberals. Politics are shades of grey, not black and white. If politics were in black and white, I could get away with calling republicans “nazis”, because that’s the farthest right wing party I can think of at the moment.

But it’s not, and I don’t.

Mainly because I had a 4th grade education and I know the difference between an american liberal – which is really center right compared to most political parties around the world – and soviet era communists.

But your school failed you, and for that I’m sorry.

triple on June 2, 2014 at 9:06 PM

I’m sorry you never reached 5th grade.

American Liberals are indistinguishable from most liberals the world over. I should know – I used to be one. And yeah, at their ideological heart they are much more akin to soviet style Communist than anything else. But truth be told, Communism comes in varied shades of red these days. But it’s all Leftard Red the world over.

Nazism, or National Socialism in full (German: Nationalsozialismus), is the ideology and practice associated with the 20th-century German Nazi Party and state as well as other related far-right groups.

-Wikipedia Entry on the Nazi Party

That’s why Wikipedia is worthless on so many topics.

From the Nazi Party platform. Far-right? Not so much.

Therefore we demand:

11. That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished.

12. Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in blood and treasure, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as treason to the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits.

Nazism, or National Socialism in full (German: Nationalsozialismus), is the ideology and practice associated with the 20th-century German Nazi Party and state as well as other related far-right groups.

-Wikipedia Entry on the Nazi Party

triple on June 2, 2014 at 9:13 PM

Wikipedia!! LOL.

You don’t seem to understand the fundamental difference between the American Constitutional system and the Eurotrash party-oriented parliamentary systems. Right wing, in Eurotrash terms, means nationalist. It has little to do with governance. The Nazis were full-blown socialists. They were considered “right wing” (in Europe) because they were national socialists, fighting against the international socialists.

In America, as you clearly don’t understand, all socialists are left wing. It has to do with the essential difference in our governmental architecture. Of course, you don’t understand jack about any of this …

Well, I guess I am an idiot. Questions directed at the dinglballs (you know who you are): Is killing an ambassador an act of war or not? Is abandoning your post desertion or not? Is negotiating with terrorists in violation of law or not? Please note on the last one that it was a law Barack Hussein Obama signed a few years ago. Your ball.

This whole thing stinks to high heaven. But it might lay the foundation for impeachment. Treason is defined in the Constitution as aiding the enemy. This swap clearly does that, as the enemy goes free while our soldier goes to Leavenworth or worse. Bergdahl faces desertion charges, right? There is no chance he will return to the Army. But here he is getting a slap on the back from Obama. Did he get immunity from prosecution? Only the enemy gains from this obscene deal.

It’s the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Cold Harbor, Virginia, where thousands of Americans were killed and maimed in a desperate battle. To a man, those fallen soldiers must be howling in their graves in shame.

Nazism, or National Socialism in full (German: Nationalsozialismus), is the ideology and practice associated with the 20th-century German Nazi Party and state as well as other related far-right groups.

-Wikipedia Entry on the Nazi Party

triple on June 2, 2014 at 9:13 PM

Try thinking…what makes them right-wing other than a Wikepedia entry?

National Socialist Program…

We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood and way of life for the citizens.

We demand the nationalisation of all (previous) associated industries (trusts)

We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries.

We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.

immediate communalization of the great warehouses

We demand a land reform suitable to our needs, provision of a law for the free expropriation of land for the purposes of public utility, abolition of taxes on land and prevention of all speculation in land.

The state is to be responsible for a fundamental reconstruction of our whole national education program, to enable every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education and subsequently introduction into leading positions.

The State is to care for the elevating national health by protecting the mother and child, by outlawing child-labor, by the encouragement of physical fitness

Please note I’m the one defending our constitutional right to a fair trial

triple on June 2, 2014 at 8:59 PM

Well, soldiers, who desert during a war, are subject to summary execution, but no one is arguing for that. The question is whether we should have expended blood and treasure to look for someone, WHO CALLED THE COMMANDER AT HIS BASE THE DAY AFTER HE LEFT TO TELL HIM THAT HE WAS NOT RETURNING, or exchange five hardened terrorists, who the DOD has said will almost certainly pose a national security threat to the United States in the future, for him.

But, now that we have he back, he should be made to stand before a military tribunal and pay for whatever he did.

“In a way it really does. It’s very frustrating to me to turn on the TV and to see Bergdahl’s family on the TV being shown to everyone and then these soldiers, although they had very beautiful and extravagant ceremonies after they died, were pretty much only recognized in the local news, local newspapers. They were never nationally televised for their sacrifices in the way that he is and he pretty much voluntarily walked away and in turn caused the actions that killed them,” Korder said.

The former Army soldier added he understands Bergdahl may need time to reacclimatize after his time in captivity, but he believes “[Bergdahl] needs to be questioned and basically tried, if necessary.”

“For leaving the observation post and for deserting the unit?” Tapper asked.

Your love of america is superficial, a ribbon on the suv and a flag magnet on your fridge. When it’s time to defend american ideals – FAIR TRIALS, RECOVERING OUR MEN OVERSEAS – you take the easy, comfortable route, because you don’t really believe in american ideals, you believe in your own self superiority without really knowing why.

Iraq was going well by the end of W’s presidency, until Team Smart Power bungled the SOFA agreement. And with his failure we lost not only a base from which to confront the Iranian fascists and to build a pro-Western, constitutional, and reasonably democratic bulwark for the screwed up Arabs to the west and south, but we are at serious risk of losing everything we won from 2003 to 2008, when the surge broke the back of al Qaeda in Iraq and brought the reclacitrant Anbar tribes over to our side. thank your idiot president for that.

Well, but I’m already a cop, a firefighter, a crop duster, an iron worker, a commercial fisherman, a linesman, a tree trimmer, and an oilfield roughneck, because I couldn’t let all those people risk their lives for my benefit. I had to join in, they way you have.

There just aren’t enough hours in the day for me to join all four branches of the armed forces too.

“I can’t tell you if the use of force in Iraq today would last five days, or five weeks, or five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than that.”
–Donald Rumsfeld, November 14, 2002
“It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months”
– Donald Rumsfeld, February 7, 2003
“I think it will go relatively quickly. Weeks rather than months.”
– Dick Cheney, March 16, 2003
“No one is talking about occupying Iraq for five to ten years.”
– Richard Perle, March 9, 2003

It’s a political tornado in the making; if Bergdahl does end up being proved a deserter or worse, Democrats will run screaming from future Gitmo prisoner releases. Just doesn’t make sense.

Looks like everything is going as planned. Everyone is riled up and calling names.

It does appear to be a bit of a puzzle on why did Obama do this with this guy?

First focus on what matters to Obama and his handlers. Socialism. Obamacare, national health care in their words, is as the communist said in 1949 the only way to get an American capitalist society to move to a socialist society. Socialism as some may remember is that period of time before communism where the government owns and controls everything for the good of the common “middle class” people. Remember communism does away with the poor class and except for the elites, who have the need of social and wealth privilege, there is no rich class. Moving America to socialism is all that counts.

That means electing a Democrat as president. Hillary is seen as the best candidate to continue and expand what Obama and the socialist handlers began.

At the moment Benghazi is poison to Hillary. It will kill any chance to raise her to the presidency. She has to win the next presidential election. It has to be buried out of sight, like a pile of dog doo smells to high awful.

Obama is done with, and as he said, once he is re-elected, his job is done, he is just going along for the ride. If he can empty Guantanamo, that is his payback to the American people who had defied him at every term. It is well known that narcissist get even with those who defy them. He sees it as his duty to release those who will harm the country most, starting with five of the very worse, just in case he does not get another opportunity.

So how do you kill Benghazi? Create and even bigger scandal than it is, at least in the eyes of the media, but one that is not fatal like Benghazi is to anyone that matters. That what we are seeing and the best part they believe is that they can keep stirring the pot with new releases. And, its all on Obama’s head, which he really had no problem with since he sees himself on the right side of this issue, even if most Americans are on the other side.

And you’re a coward, letting others fight your wars for you, and saying “tough luck” when one of them ends up going a little nuts as a result.

triple on June 2, 2014 at 9:26 PM

Our wars, that monumentally stupid woman and failure of a Secr of State, Hillary voted for said wars, and so did the nmaority of the political relevant side that you supported, meaning the dems in senate and congress. so stop calling them ‘our wars, retard.